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PAGE 244 246 246 247 247 248 249 250 251 252 252 255 255 256 257 259 261 267 268 269 270 270 272 273 275 276 277 277 282 283 284 285 285 286 289 289 289 291 291 296 PEEFACE BY THE EDITOR OF THIS TEXT The Panchatantra in the Study of Comparative Literature.— Under the title of Panclia-tantra there has been current in India for many cen¬ turies a collection of ancient Hindu popular tales, of which collection the name was made thoroughly familiar in the Occident some fifty years ago by that first great classic in the field of Comparative Literature, the Pantsclia- tantra: funf Bucher inclischer Fabeln, Mdrchen urid Erzdhlungen of Theodor Benfey (Leipzig, 1859). The stories are intended for the instmction of princes, and in the oldest form of this work they exclusively convey precepts for the clever conduct of life* which are of so great intrinsic value, and are couched in so attractive a form, that, in translations and in translations of translations, the collection has had an influence upon the literatures of Western Asia and of Mediaeval Europe which is quite without a parallel. The Pauchatantra in India. Tantrahhyayiha.— But not only in Europe and in Western Asia has the Panchatantra had a notable history; in its native India also the collection has existed as a collection for some twenty- one centuries, while the substance of the stories embodied in it is even older than that. It was my good fortune to discover the oldest known Sanskrit recension of the collection among the manuscripts loaned to me by the Deccan College Library of Poona. It is one of the Kashmirian MSS. got by Biihler, is written in the Sarada character, and bears the title Tantrakhyayika. This recension probably dates from about 200 b. a Pandit Sahajabhatta, of Srinagar, discovered some more fragmentary MSS. of this fine old text. Together with the Poona MS. they form the basis of my forthcoming critical edition of the Tantrakhyayika.^ Of the multitudinous Indian recensions of the work, one of the most important is that which has commonly been called by Western scholars the ‘ textus * This will be shown in the Introduction to my German translation of the Tantra¬ khyayika (Leipzig, B. 6. Teubner). ® Cp. my papers: tlber das Tantrakhyayika, die Ka^mlrische Rezension des Panca- tantra. Mit dem Texte der HandschriR Decc. Coll. VIII, 145. Dea XXII. Bandes der Abhandlungen der phil.-hist. Klasse der Kgl. Silchs. Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften No. V. Leipzig, bei B. G. Teubner, 1904; and Eine zweite Rezension dea Tantrakhyayika (Zeitschr. d. Deutschcn Morgcnl. Gesellschaft, LIX, p. 1 ff.). XIV Preface ornatior’, but which is better designated by the name of its author, the Jaina monk Purnabhadra Suri. It is dated 1199 a.d. Pnrnabhadra’s recension. Supplementary works. —The present volume is the editio princeps of the Sanskrit text of Purnabhadra s recension of the Panchatantra. It is my hope and purpose in due course to issue another volume containing a critical introduction to the present edition of Purna- bhadra’s text, with the complete variants of the best manuscripts, and with indexes of stanzas and of metres ; and then a third giving a history of the Sanskrit Panchatantra in India, and of its offshoots in Western Asia and Europe, with r^sum^s and parallels of the single tales. An English translation of Purnabhadra’s text has been made by Mr. Paul Elmer More, now Associate Editor of The (Nexo York) Nation^ and formerly a pupil and assistant of Professor Lanman at Harvard. Genesis of this text-edition.— The Sanskrit text of this edition was first constituted by my friend, Professor Richard Schmidt, of Halle. He based his text upon Kosegarten’s MSS. A and K, comparing the Hamburg MSS. H and I for difficult passages. Schmidt’s recension of the text is represented by his well-known German translation. My discovery of the fact that Kosegaiten’s edition of the * textus siraplicior' and his specimen of the ‘ textus ornatior ’ were wholly uncritical, and that the so-called ‘ textus oniatior is based mainly on the ‘ textus simplicior ’ and on the above- mentioned Tantrakhyayika, made it necessai’y to examine all the Pancha¬ tantra MSS. available. Accordingly, I took upon myself this task, examined carefully some ninety MSS., and succeeded in determining the relations between the different recensions of the Panchatantra, and in ascertaining which were the best MSS. of each. Thereupon Professor Schmidt relinquished to me the task of editing Purnabhadra’s Sanskrit text, at the same time obliging me by taking upon himself the revision and publication of another Sanskrit text which we were to edit jomtly, the Subhasita- sarpdoha of Amitagati. Manuscripts on which this edition is based, and its critical aim.—The general principles of critical procedure by which the editor has been guided in the constitution of this text, and the reasons for relying mainly on the five MSS. which have been chosen to serve as its basis, will be given in the promised volume containing the critical introduction. Several provi¬ sional statements, however, must here be made. The MSS. A and K proved to be contaminated MSS. (K having suffered even more from revisers than A); and, as such, they were unusable for a critical edition, except by way of oc^ional reference. The codices upon which the present edition is actually based are the followinsr: By the Editor of this Text XV bh = Deccan College x. 190, dated samvat 1468 ; N = Deccan College x. 189, dated samvat 1855; 'P = Deccan College iv. 55; P = Bhandarkar, Report 1897, No. 419, dated samvat 1537; M = Deccan College iv. 54. As will be proved in the ciitical introduction, codex N is a derivative of codex bh, and codices P and M are derivatives of codex 'P. The manuscripts bh and 4^ are the most valuable of all the MSS. concerned. They are the reflexes of an archetype which was not wholly free from conuptions, but which difiered very little from the text as wi-itten down by Pui*nabhadra himself. The restoration of this archetype is accordingly the critical aim of my edition. Obvious blunders (and only such) I have indeed endeavoured to correct, and chiefly with the help of other manuscript materials; ^ but wherever I have deviated, even in trifles, from bh or 'P (whose wording is nearly identical), I have indicated the fact by placing an asterisk before the coiTected passage. Wherever no such star is placed in the text, the reader may infer that it contains the wording of either bh or For further details, I beg to refer the reader to the critical introduction. Acknowledgment of obligations. —There remains the most agreeable duty of acknowledging the aid I have received from various persons and institutions. This has been so generously and kindly given that I can only hope that my edition may prove to be of a scientific value and impor¬ tance commensurate with the kind interest which these excellent men and liberal corporations have shown in its progress. Professor Richard Schmidt, of Halle, not only relinquished the joint-editorship (as explained above), but copied for me the greater part of MS. Bh (= Deccan College xiii. 68) and books ii and iii and iv of the Hamburg MSS. H and I, and turned over to me his printer’s copy of the text, as well as his copies and collations of MSS. A and K.—Miss Emma Benfey, of Hamburg, daughter of the celebrated scholar, presented me with her father’s collations of the Hamburg MSS. and of MS. K.—My beloved teacher, Geheimer Rat Professor Ernst Windisch of Leipzig, arranged for the publication of several of my Panchatantra treatises in the Berichte and Ahhandlwngen of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences. He also secured for me from the funds of the Society certain appropriations which were of the utmost use and necessity in procuring manuscript and printed materials which were indispensable for the continuance of my investigations.—A like > Of these may be mentioned the MSS. A, Bh (=Deccan College xiii. 68), and the Hamburg MSS. H and I of the teztus simplicior. XVI Preface service was done me by Gebeimer Regierungsrat Professor Richard Pischel, of Berlin, upon whose recommendation the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences voted to assign to me the income of the Bopp Foundation in 1904 and a part thereof in 1907. To the Librarian of the India Office in London, Mr. Charles H. Tawney, and to his successor, Mr. Frederick W. Thomas; to Professor Ernst Leu- mann, of Strassburg; to Professor Sylvain Ldvi, of Paris; to Geh. Regierungsrat Prof. Jacobi, of Bonn; to the late Professor C. Bendall, of Cambridge; to Dr. M. Aurel Stein, of the Indian Educational Service ; to Professor Eugen Hultzsch, of Halle; to Professor Leo von Mankowski, of Cracow; to the Government Epigraphist, V. Venkayya, of Ootacamund; to T, S. Kuppuswami ^astri, of Tanjore; to Vakil Keshavlal Premchand, of Ahmedabad ; to Mr. J. C. Chatterji, of Srinagar; and to Pandit Sahaja- bhatte, of Srinagar, I am greatly obliged for their help in providing me with manuscript materials, which, but for their aid, would not have been available for me.—The Hamburger Stadtbibliothek, the India Office Library, the Deccan College Library, the Libraries of Tanjore Palace, of Madras, Benares, and Khatmandu—these either lent to me the originals of their Panchatantra MSS. or provided me with copies of the same.